ConwayLife.com

Golly is going too fast, even when I am not pressing the Faster button.

cgoler2 wrote: ↑

March 19th, 2021, 3:50 pm

Golly is going too fast, even when I am not pressing the Faster button.

Try unchecking the "Hyperspeed" option under Control > Hyperspeed.

If that's not it, then just hit the minus button a few times -- Golly remembers the last speed you were running at, until you change it.

dvgrn wrote: ↑

March 19th, 2021, 3:59 pm

Try unchecking the "Hyperspeed" option under Control > Hyperspeed.

If that's not it, then just hit the minus button a few times -- Golly remembers the last speed you were running at, until you change it.

I remember having the plus and minus buttons when I first downloaded Golly (they disappeared shortly afterwards), and about a week ago Golly disappeared on my computer and when I redownloaded it, they still weren't there.

You can use the + and - keys on your keyboard. (Or the Shift= if you don't have a numpad. I don't know about phones though.)

Macbi wrote: ↑

March 20th, 2021, 10:33 am

You can use the + and - keys on your keyboard. (Or the Shift= if you don't have a numpad. I don't know about phones though.)

Thanks! Before I had to go Control > Faster/Slower.

Schiaparelliorbust wrote: ↑

March 20th, 2021, 10:38 am

Macbi wrote: ↑

March 20th, 2021, 10:33 am

You can use the + and - keys on your keyboard. (Or the Shift= if you don't have a numpad. I don't know about phones though.)

Thanks! Before I had to go Control > Faster/Slower.

For any command like Control > Faster and Control > Slower, the relevant keyboard shortcuts should be listed to the right on the pop-up menu. You don't have to hit Shift-plus -- the equal sign also works.

Schiaparelliorbust wrote: ↑

March 20th, 2021, 10:29 am

I remember having the plus and minus buttons when I first downloaded Golly (they disappeared shortly afterwards), and about a week ago Golly disappeared on my computer and when I redownloaded it, they still weren't there.

Remind me please what OS you're running Golly on? Is this Golly 4.0 we're talking about here?

About "plus and minus buttons" "disappearing"... that's not specific enough to mean anything. If you hover your mouse in the upper left corner of Golly's universe, do you see plus and minus buttons appearing there, or not? Where else would you have seen plus or minus buttons, exactly?

There are + and - buttons on Golly's Layers toolbar, which will certainly disappear if you happen to hit the backslash key on your keyboard (and reappear if you hit the same key again)... but those add and remove layers, they don't change simulation speed.

I'd advise changing the step size in File > Preferences > Control > Set default base step to "2" for HashLife, instead of "8" -- that gives much better control over simulation speed, at the cost of having to hit + or - a few more times, on occasion.

dvgrn wrote: ↑

March 20th, 2021, 10:47 am

I'd advise changing the step size in File > Preferences > Control > Set default base step to "2" for HashLife, instead of "8" -- that gives much better control over simulation speed, at the cost of having to hit + or - a few more times, on occasion.

Does anyone actually like 8? We could just make 2 the default.

Macbi wrote: ↑

March 20th, 2021, 12:56 pm

Does anyone actually like 8? We could just make 2 the default.

There is the problem of having the default HashLife (and the algorithms that run on HashLife) base step be a lot slower than the QuickLife base step.

(And, to be honest, I don't think anyone really likes 8.)

bubblegum wrote: ↑

March 20th, 2021, 1:00 pm

Macbi wrote: ↑

March 20th, 2021, 12:56 pm

Does anyone actually like 8? We could just make 2 the default.

There is the problem of having the default HashLife (and the algorithms that run on HashLife) base step be a lot slower than the QuickLife base step.

I solve that problem by setting the default QuickLife base step to 2 also, and setting the minimum delay to 10 milliseconds to get a much more gradual speed change everywhere.

However, I've always been more of an amateur pattern collector than an actual programmer or designer on the Golly project, so I've tended to be fairly conservative about making changes to default functionality that are based on my own personal opinions.

Half the time the settings I like are based on my own idiosyncratic use of the software, and it turns out that other people use Golly very differently.

dvgrn wrote: ↑

March 20th, 2021, 1:42 pm

I solve that problem by setting the default QuickLife base step to 2 also

I think QuickLife's default base is 10 because QuickLife runs well in 10s, or something (at least that's how QuickLife-friendly seems to be used, i.e. not at all).

I also set QuickLife to step size 2. I don't think there's anything magical about 10. If anything I seem to remember that QuickLife works in 2s, so that areas of ash containing still lifes and blinkers become unchanging. That might just be lifelib though.